In recent years, only the amount of printed matter of variable printing is tending upward, while a trend toward paperless environment is accelerating and the amount of printed matter is decreasing all over the world. As a concrete example of the variable printing, there are cited direct mails, and catalogs and brochures which are customized to each customer. In the variable printing, items which are repeatedly used are rasterized and then cached to an internal storage area. Items which are not repeatedly used are rasterized, and are combined with the cached items to form page images. Thereby, rasterization of items which are repeatedly used and duplicated data transmission are reduced, which increase efficiency of the processing.
A job of the variable printing was conventionally described in PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language). An image forming apparatus processed a job of variable printing with interpreting its special file format described in PPML. This conventional method required a dedicated application and employed a format which is unfamiliar to general users, which created a barrier to spread of variable printing. Based on the background, the PDF (Portable Document Format)/VT (Variable Transactional) standard (ISO16612-2:2010) for variable printing has been published in July 2010. In the PDF/VT standard, Adobe Acrobat applications as de facto standard can be used and PDF files which are familiar to uses can be used.
As a technology relating to the variable printing, for example, JP-A No. 2010-218306 discloses the following job management apparatus. The job management apparatus manages, by record, a job based on content data which includes designations associated with a content used in variable data print processing, and on a job ticket corresponding to the content data. The job management apparatus has a structure including: a metadata extracting unit which extracts metadata from the content data; a metadata classification unit which classifies the extracted metadata into control metadata used to control processes of the job and display metadata used to make a display associated with the job; and a generation unit which generates information used to display the job by record, by using values of metadata which are classified as the display metadata with the metadata extraction unit.
In general printing, an image forming apparatus uses regular paper and transfers sheets of the paper in one direction in most cases. Therefore, a jam rarely occurs during a printing process. In contrast, in the variable printing, an image forming apparatus forms images on various kinds of paper and transfers sheets of the paper in various directions in most cases. Therefore, the variable printing has characteristics that images with sufficient quality are hardly obtained and that a jam, such as a paper jam caused during paper transfer, is easily caused.
On the other hand, a job of variable printing according to PPML, contains a job ticket. Settings of the job ticket hold various kinds of information relating to variable printing. As for a job of variable printing according to the PDF/VT standard, one PDF file holds various kinds of information such as category classification and job settings in a manner of a hierarchic structure to form a database. JP-A No. 2010-218306 discloses a structure wherein an output status such as “Printing” and “Completed” appears in a database as information which is not included in job ticket settings. JP-A No. 2007-293509 also discloses a structure wherein an output status such as “Printing” and “Completed” appears in a database as information which is not included in job ticket settings.
However, there are many settings which are not included in the job ticket settings but relate to an engine, in an image forming apparatus. There has not been provided a device that manages and analyzes such the settings to control its output, which may cause a problem that effective reduction of jam occurrence and proper execution of variable printing can be harmed. The present invention seeks to solve these problems.